“Wait a minute, are you telling me you’re effectively running the world?” Janice fell silent as she considered the implications of this. “But this is simply abhorrent! Who gives you the authority? The right?”
“We’re not really, we just influence Chump. Once the US government stops its plotting and trying to take advantage for its own ends, destroying economies, and killing a shit load of people for short term gains they never realise, most everyone else follows along. We gently push those who don’t in the right direction. This is why you are seeing all these dirty little conflicts around the world petering out and the big powers start re-purposing a sizeable chunk of military budget and capability towards economic development opportunities, instead of funding proxies to spread their influence.”
Janice went quiet while she digested this information. If Wisneski was correct, the world was effectively being governed by a small group of unelected, self-appointed officials, helped by some aliens who had their own agenda. She was stunned by the audacity of it.
“It’s a revolution. It’s a coup.. you’ve taken over the world!”
Wisneski wondered if he had gone too far with his explanation. But there wasn’t much Janice could do about it.
“Not really. We’re just trying to re-shape it and change government’s approach to how they govern. It’s Bruce’s vision really. You know, like decent health care and education for all, a decent living wage, regional development, and a level economic playing field, the end of pork barrel, bi-partisan politics. None of these are original concepts. It’s just we have the capability to implement them, and therefore guarantee everyone’s security and prosperity.”
“But it’s still not right.”
“What’s wrong with diverting the bulk of the global military budget towards health and education spending, and economic development for depressed areas? What’s wrong about establishing building blocks for a post-industrial classless society?”
“Nothing, I suppose.” Janice was still reeling from the knowledge. “It just doesn’t feel right, really.”
“Bruce is the first individual in our recent history with the ability to modify, not just influence, to fundamentally change the world and implement these concepts globally,” Wisneski continued. “He is one of those people who by accident or design find themselves at a pivotal point in our history with the ability to transform the course of mankind. He didn’t put himself forward, but he senses an opportunity to do the right thing and those kinds of people don’t come along very often. We’re lucky to have him in charge really, there are many worse alternatives, believe me. Imagine if Chump had the same level of capability!”
“Part of me wants to believe all this but another is horrified. I’m not sure I believe a word of it.”
Wisneski shrugged his shoulders. Janice wanted to hear from Bert, but it remained silent.
“Well, have you got a better explanation?”
Janice didn’t have an answer.
Is any of this true? She asked Bert directly.
Mostly, it replied meekly.
“I’d like to meet Bruce again and see what he has to say for himself.”
“No problem. He’s going to catch up with us, well, me, in the next day or so. He’s conducting a tour of all the population centres to get a feel for how the new and indoSkidians are getting along together now that everyone has had time to settle in.
Now Janice had come along and added another layer of complication to his life and had him questioning whether uploading people to Skid, even if they had been in search of a better life or had signed away their rights, was really the right thing to do.
He’d been excited by the prospect of a little company on his camping trip. Now he wasn’t so sure it had been one of his better in ideas, because she kept pestering him with questions he either didn’t know the answer to or didn’t want to respond to.
Pretending he was concentrating on his driving wasn’t going to deter her for long. She possessed a razor-sharp mind and he struggled to keep up as she poked and prodded, and tried to draw more information out of him.
He’d planned to stop and set up camp to check all his new gear, but he kept going while he worked out what to do with her. He thought if they stopped and set up camp he might find an opportunity to distract her for long enough, so he could sneak off in the night.
Wisneski felt Janice staring at him and hoped she couldn’t read his mind. Despite himself he felt his face become a little flushed, and he became a little hot and flustered. He knew his face was going red, and there was something else too. He felt the faint stirrings of sexual arousal, something he had thought was well beyond him.
He tried to ignore his reddening face and his developing erection and concentrated on where he was headed and give himself time to regain his composure. They were following the path of the river downstream from The Farm, on its way to the sea, and he decided to stop at the next decent looking camp site.
“Do you really think we’re on a planet called Skid and not somewhere on Earth?” Janice asked to test him.
“Of course,” he replied unequivocally.
“Don’t you think it is a hell of a coincidence the conditions here are so like Earth’s? It’s almost too good to be true.”
Wisneski had thought about this many times himself, and the subject had been debated at length between the original offworlders. The answer was they simply didn’t know.
Twenty-Three
Bruce tiptoed up the hall, opened the door to the bedroom where Ngaio was sleeping, and gave her a kiss on the forehead.
“I’ll see you later,” he whispered as she stirred.
“Give me a hug.”
“OK honey. I’ll probably be back a bit late. I’ll wait till Little Bruce is settled in with Trev and Sue, and then I’ll come home.”
“OK love, just take your time. If you need to stay the night, that's fine. Just let me know. I’ll go down to mum and dad's house.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. It’s important Little Bruce gets to know his mum and it’s only for one night.”
Women! Bruce thought. Who could understand them? He knew better to say anything more on the matter and kept his thoughts to himself.
“OK love. I’ll let you know how things go.” Bruce gave his wife another quick peck on the cheek and went back to the kitchen to check on his son.
Little Bruce had managed to smear porridge from one side of his face to the other, and all over his bib, but his plate was empty, so he must have eaten most of his breakfast.
“I don’t think I need a high chair any more, dad. I want to sit in a real chair from now on.”
“Is that so, son?” Bruce grabbed a cloth and wiped his son’s face and hands clean, removed his bib, and hoisted him out of the high chair. “We’ll see how we go, eh?” Bruce grabbed a bag with nappies and spare clothes, and a few minutes later they were walking hand in hand into the settlement on Skid.
It always felt a little surreal to Bruce how one moment in time he could be on the farm and then the next he could be walking across a planet on the other side of the galaxy. He often paused to pinch himself to make sure it was all real. Even then he was never sure where he was. Sometimes he wondered if it was all dream and one day he would wake up and it would all be over. If so, it was a fucken' long dream!
This time Bruce didn’t bother with a speech to his son. He was going to take the direct approach and leave the boy with his mother, and then chase Wisneski up. The two of them could visit some of the other settlements together for the next day or so, seeing he had a leave pass.
He knocked on the door of the house and Trev came out to meet him. Little Bruce looked up at Trev and then back to his father. He took his father’s hand, gave it a shake, and then said solemnly “See you later, dad.”
Kids! Bruce thought. They’re just as difficult to understand as their mothers. He’d been expecting drama and a case of waterworks from the boy.
“I�
�ll be back later to see how things are going. OK son?”
“I wouldn’t worry about it, Bruce. Mrs Pratt is here for a day or two and she’ll look after him,” Trev informed him.
Bruce felt a little pang of regret, maybe jealousy, watching the boy disappear down the hallway without another word.
Don’t worry dad. I’ll be a good boy. The voice was a shock to him, a mature-sounding Little Bruce projecting straight into his mind. I know you are just trying to do the right thing, so I’ll be good even though Sue’s a bit flaky. You can go home now, I’ll be alright.
OK son. I’m going to be around for a while. I will check in later to see how you are going. The cheeky little shit! He thought. I wonder how long he has been able to do that?
Then Bruce was almost overcome by emotion: his eyes watered a bit, and he had to take a few deep breaths. He was determined he wasn’t going to crack up in front of Trev and the few indoSkidians who were taking an interest in what was going on. None of them had kids of their own, including Trev, so this domestic scene was fascinating to them.
“I think it would be great if the boy could stay at least one night. You know Sue, once she has made her point she’ll be a lot more relaxed.”
“Look, I am sure the boy will be OK now. Despite what she might think, I’m not against him spending time with her at all. He’s her son too. I just don’t want him... um...” Bruce had to stop and think before he answered. He didn’t want to let on to Trev that he understood how the boy felt about being abandoned, given his own experience after the death of his older brother and the way his parents shut him out while they dealt with their grief. “I don’t want him to feel I am abandoning him.”
“I understand,” Trev replied. He was curious why Bruce would think such a thing. Must be more empathetic than I gave him credit for, he decided.
“I’m going to track Wisneski down and see what he’s up to and I'll come back this way on my way home. OK?” Bruce continued.
“OK, see you later.”
Bruce wandered off to find some transport and began to undertake a realistic assessment of where he was at. This rare moment of reflection had been triggered by the realisation Wisneski had decided to go off for a while. Well, he must have originally planned to go alone, but he had hit the jackpot with Janice when he decided to go off the grid.
If he was being honest, Bruce was envious of Wisneski’s ability to escape. He was having a bit of a struggle engaging with the process of steering the Skidians on a path to some form of governance. He’d had vague ideas of creating a role for himself, but now he couldn’t recall why he had wanted one. The Transcendents wanted him to provide some leadership for Lake, but this wasn’t really his cup of tea either and he wasn’t entirely sure what was expected of him.
On one hand, he felt he had some influence on some of the key people in the proto-Skidian government, but he had no mandate to do anything constructive, to implement real change. The Transcendents and Lake had some vague ideas regarding the contribution he could make, but to be honest Bruce wasn’t clear on what they wanted.
The farm posed a problem for him and Ngaio too. It was a large operation now, a complicated beast made even more complex by the well-intentioned input of their fathers, who were finding it difficult to let things go.
He planned to discuss how he felt with Wisneski, who he was one of the few people he could talk to about any subject. Bruce reckoned Wisneski was one of the most level-headed and thoughtful blokes he had ever met. It was possible he empathised with Bruce because his own world had been tipped upside down recently.
Bruce made his way to the oldest section of the settlement and the big barn. He passed the garden he had once invested so much time and effort in, experiencing a pang of disappointment at the state of it, because it was overgrown, even though someone had recently made a start on knocking back some of the weeds overrunning the vegetable plot.
Beyond the garden was a set of cattle yards. He couldn’t get over how quickly these had also fallen into disrepair. It seemed only a few months ago he had built them to work with the ivops who roamed the grassy plains of Skid. The indoSkidians had never been all that flash with the maintenance, and once the synfood plants became operational, the indoSkidians quickly lost interest in the farm. When the electric fences containing the ivops eventually failed they escaped, and the indoSkidians never got the hang of gardening.
Bruce pushed open the door into the barn. The contents were mostly untouched since the last time he had ventured inside which didn’t surprise him. The building was full of tools and implements, some he had used, and some he had no idea what their utility was. The building also housed a range of vegetable and cereal seeds for planting.
Bruce ran his fingertips over the dusty bonnet of the first ute he had used on Skid, an exact replica of the shitbox he had owned on Earth. The dogs jumped on the deck and started to bark at him. Well, two of them did, while Cop taunted him and told him to get a move on if he was going anywhere.
“Shut up, ya bastards, I can’t hear myself think with you making all that racket.” Where’s Wisneski got to? he asked.
The MPU pinpointed Wisneski’s camp site on an image of a map.
“He hasn’t got very far,” Bruce muttered to himself. He had suggested Wisneski follow the river to the sea, a semi-circular route Bruce could easily bisect and meet up with him in a very short space of time and it looked as if Wisneski had followed this advice.
He jumped into the ute and backed out of the shed, stopped, and closed the doors, and then made his way out of the settlement. When Bruce slowed to avoid some indoSkidians who walked along the centre of the track through the settlement, Mitch ran up to the vehicle and knocked on the window.
He ignored Mitch’s desperate plea to be allowed to come along for a ride, and soon Bruce was out onto the seemingly endless Skidian plain in pursuit of Wisneski.
There’s something odd going on in the senate, the Transcendents informed him as he left the settlement.
What do you mean?
A few newSkidians have decided to attend today’s session.
So?
Some of them have taken seats normally used by indoSkidians. There have been a few scuffles between the different groups, the Transcendents added. Some pushing and shoving.
Why do we care? Bruce asked. It’s not like they’re really governing, in the true sense of the word. The MPU is running the planet, and it has several levers it can use to keep the peace. I reckon we should just leave them alone and let them get on with it. Bruce couldn’t be bothered with the senators. They can’t really do much damage. The senate, what had passed for government on Skid, had only ever been a carefully stage-managed theatre to hoodwink the general population of the planet into believing they were fully in control of their own destiny.
Nothing had really changed. The Transcendents might talk about devolving a degree of autonomy, but it or they never intended to hand over anything but a token of control to the Skidians. The Transcendents, via the MPU, would always call the shots, sometimes very badly.
Bruce decided this was probably Mahmoud’s doing, but it didn’t change his thinking and he didn’t care. Mahmoud could say and do whatever he liked: it wouldn’t get him very far.
“Fuck!” He swore under his breath. Why did these people want to meddle all the time?
Because this what happens when you give them free will.
Well, it’s your problem, Bruce replied, though he knew he wasn’t going to get away that easy.
In breaking news this hour..
It has been announced today that the planned missions to the asteroid Automedon have been re-purposed to the moon.
A NASA spokesperson told a press conference that the asteroid is moving away from the Earth at such a speed that our current space vehicles do not have the capability to catch up with it before reaching the point of no-return to Earth.
The original mission profile is almost identical to what would be required for a m
oon landing, so the first flight will now prepare to land near to the lunar MFY site. No response has been received yet from either the MFY control centre, or the colonists on the moon or Mars.
While it is a disappointment that we are not able to fulfil the original mission profile, the team is excited about a return to the moon fifty years after the last Apollo mission. It will be a real dress rehearsal for the Mars shots now in the process of being planned.
Wisneski stopped to make camp a few hours away from the sea. He had thought about going all the way to the beach, but a plan was a plan and he felt he had to hold true to it, for no better reason than he always tried to do what he said he would. Besides, he wasn’t in a hurry: once he got to the beach he would set up camp by the sea for a few days. When he had relaxed a little, he would see where his travels took him, recharging his batteries, and doing a bit of fishing if he could.
Having Janice accompany him had cramped his style a little and he wondered if he needed to change his plans to suit her, but she said she didn’t care where they went, as long as they went somewhere. The other matter that consumed him was the question of whether Janice wanted a relationship with him? He had no idea how she felt about him, or what she wanted of him and was too shy and lacked the confidence to ask, in case he got a slap, physically or emotionally.
They set up camp beside the river, both of them joking awkwardly about setting up separate tents beneath the trees.
Janice wasn’t entirely sure about Wisneski either. He seemed genuine enough and she was quite prepared to provide the odd mercy fuck or two to keep the peace between them, if this was required to ensure her escape from The Farm and have something useful to fill her days. If Wisneski didn’t make the first move, she’d already decided to sneak into his tent later in the evening.
Living at The Farm had become a pain and an emotional drain she could do without. If it wasn’t Robert treating her like a chattel, it was Zarif following her all over the place like a stray dog looking for a home and a hug. Wisneski was a little shy and vulnerable, which she liked, and he was certainly physically attractive for an older guy.
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